Our Love Is Violence
by Little Kuriboh
Summary: Marik and Bakura go tomb raiding, and in the process their relationship - such as it is - is tested.


**Chapter 1**

The tomb seethed with ancient shadows and forgotten memories. Deep underground as it was, lifeless and bereft of light, their footfalls became the dim and distant heartbeat of a dying man; a long dead king who adamantly refused to just vanish, like so many others before him.

Marik knew these pathways like the back of his hand. No, even more intimately. It was clear from the way he moved; his head never changed direction, his arms never reached out to regain his bearings, his voice never broke the cloud of silence that surrounded them, kept them close in stirless thought. They were a good distance apart, Marik at least several feet ahead of him, yet in the deathly cold of the underground Bakura could still feel the warmth of Marik's shape from afar. Perhaps it was because their bodies were the only source of heat for what must have been miles, or perhaps it was the intimate familiarity he too had with the boy. The way Marik understood and knew the tomb they now explored, Bakura understood Marik, and had been exploring him for some time now.

They had met several weeks ago, in the early days of the tournament. Bakura had been fixated on his goal, to reclaim the items that rightfully belonged to him and seek justice against those who slaughtered his family, took his childhood and gave it back to him as some broken, misshapen thing that cried like his parents had done when they were tossed into the pit. Now the cries were softer, but still there, and he sought to silence them once and for all by delivering swift vengeance unto the dead king who still walked the earth - to kill that which was already dead. This had been his only cause for so long, his reason for living, for killing, for dying. It had taken root within him.

Then in the midst of his task, as he had set about gathering the instruments of the Pharaoh's destruction, he found himself face to face with a child. Not a child in the literal sense, but a young man with the heart of one so thoroughly wounded as he. He immediately recognized in this boy a beautiful and terrible kinship, a bloodlust so vividly portrayed through every glance and every shift in his focus even when disguised, that it was impossible not to look upon him with a twisted kind of fondness. He was not unattractive - had Bakura still clung to the vestiges of his virility, he might have been drawn to Marik for a very different reason at first - and one could even say that he was a pretty young thing. Bakura imagined he would have been even prettier as an infant; an infant whose innocence had been plucked so violently, shredded and mangled in the indiscriminate wheels of fate.

To his shock, Bakura found that he rathed enjoyed Marik's company. He was an abrasive and arrogant soul with an abundance of ego to spare, and for everything about him that was beautiful there was an equally ugly part of him that seemed wrong and maladjusted, like an orchid that he been allowed to grow in the darkest corner of the world, blooming into a hateful shadow of what might have been. His skin had been permanently lacerated with images of memories that belonged to a dead man. His eyes had been filled with horrors that no-one so young as him should bear witness to, nightmares he could not simply blink away. His mind had been driven to the edge of insanity with thoughts that Bakura too had possessed for thousands of years. Thoughts of vengeance and pain and a lust for murder. Both of them were consumed by a great need to bathe in the blood of their enemies, except that Marik was not able to control such urges, and instead chose to lash out. Even, it seemed, at people who wanted nothing more than to help him accomplish his horrific goals.

Marik paused. For the first time since they had entered the Pharaoh's tomb, he seemed ill at ease. Bakura wasn't certain if this suggested they were lost, or if Marik was having second thoughts about what they intended to do here. Marik seemed to be studying the walls, the intersection of stone corridors leading off in multiple directions. Bakura sniffed the air, brushing away the remnants of a cobweb that had been clasped to his brow for the last few minutes, and regarded the hieroglyphs that were now highlighted by the torch in his hand. Faded as they were, it was already difficult to make out what they were rambling on about. Prophecies and destinies and ancient such and such. Bakura chuckled aloud, the noise hopping playfully into the depths as though it were literally dancing on the Pharaoh's grave.

Marik turned and gave him a look that suggested he be quiet. Bakura lowered his grin to a smirk as he watched the boy walk toward him, his face set in that same stern expression. It was the look of a parent about to chide an infant for wandering off the beaten path. Yet here they were, both of them lost in the labyrinth of underground tunnels. If anyone was to be scolded for going in the wrong direction, it was Marik. After all, he'd lived here all his life - or at least, what had counted for one.

"Give that to me," Marik snapped, snatching the torch from Bakura's grip. Bakura held up his arms as if to suggest total compliance, and continued to smile broadly at the boy. Ignoring him, Marik turned back around and held the torch forward into the confluence of corridors. He hesitated for a few moments, and then offered the torch back to Bakura, their hands brushing together unexpectedly. The curve of Marik's fingertips, the blades of his nails, stroking his skin for all of a second. The cold air no longer registered, and the heat of the torchlight was no match for the heat within his own body.

Marik indicated the passageway leading downards. "We go this way."

"Are you sure?" Bakura hoped his mocking tone was evident. His voice sounded hollow, the emotions sucked dry as it echoed about the tomb. "You seem to be struggling to find your way around. I thought this was your little playground when you were a pup."

"I wasn't allowed down here," Marik drew his shoulders back, and from such a close distance Bakura could see his muscles at work. He was built impressively for a teenager, especially one that had once been so deprived. Bakura had, of course, seen his body from every angle, every inch of it. Yet he continued to be astounded by the boy's natural physique. It was as though he had evolved into some predatory form, grown into a body made to be strong, made to fight. Made to kill. "If I came this way, I would be punished."

Bakura knew what he meant. He had touched with his own hands the marks made upon Marik's flesh. Felt the crisscross marring and imagined what it must have been like to suffer that much pain at such a young age. No, not imagined. Remembered. Recalled it with great clarity. Marik had been like a beacon to him, bringing his focus back to hating, back to hurting. They had made love many a night since their first meeting, though it hardly seemed like love at all. In fact, love was just about the last word Bakura would have used to describe their relationship. For neither of them remembered what the word was or what it once implied.

Marik now began to descend the staircase that led into the deeper reaches of the tomb. There was a time when these walls would have been guarded closely by figures in the shadows. Of course, even if there still existed some garrison of hidden tomb keepers, they would have been no match for the two of them. Marik knew these halls better than most, and Bakura - well, had he not been known as a king amongst thieves in a previous life? No doubt traps still pervaded these passages, but every time they had come to find themselves at the mercy of a maze or other contrivance, Marik would deftly avoid or solve or dismantle every one of them. Not that Bakura needed Marik to do so - while some were indeed deadly, they each seemed relatively simple - but he liked to watch the boy work. Liked watching him deconstruct the past that had once dominated his existence, and render it as harmless and inert as a dead insect.

Had it only been so simple for Bakura. Watching Marik stride through the forbidden areas of his childhood nightmare with confidence and without fear was therapeutic, no doubt. But it was only an amusement, and not a true calming feeling the likes of which he'd been seeking for the last several thousand years. Seeing the boy make a mockery of the Pharaoh's tomb was pleasing, but instead of satisfying it, it merely aroused his lust for vengeance. With every step they made further into the dark, Bakura could feel his enemy's strength in the shadows; hear his voice in the silence. That this place even existed was proof that Bakura's work would never be done till the Pharaoh lay dead at his feet, his soul torn asunder and cast to the winds of purgatory.

Bakura had to stop himself in his tracks before he could collide with Marik, who had stopped at the foot of the stairs. They had spiralled their way downwards into a long, unlit tunnel. The only light source, outside of the torch that Bakura held between them, came from the very end of the corridor - a leaf-shaped opening that appeared to shift and dance at a great distance from them. Marik's shadow seemed to stretch outward to meet it, exaggerating his already tall and slender figure. Bakura grunted, and gave him a slight shove in the direction of the entrance.

"Wait," Marik said. He turned again and seemed to look Bakura dead in the eye. Bakura stuck out his chin playfully and lowered the torch toward Marik's exposed stomach, almost expecting him to react to the heat and take a leap backwards. Instead, Marik continued to stare, as though Bakura were a ghost and Marik could see straight through him. Then, without warning, Marik gripped him by the forearm and charged down the corridor.

"What the hell are you-?" Bakura spat, only to be interrupted by a loud scraping sound followed by a gust of hot air. He glanced over his shoulder in time to see the last few steps of the staircase retracting into the wall as if split in two by an unseen blade, and an enormous ball of flames emerge from the aperture in the rock. They had barely made it out of the tunnel when the fireball rushed at them, licking at the back of Bakura's neck before exploding safely into the ether. Marik turned and caught Bakura, who promptly shoved himself away from his embrace, scowling. "You could have warned me."

"You should have heard it too," Marik offered as explanation. "After all, you stepped on the pressure plate."

Bakura's eyes flared and he took a threatening step toward the boy. "I did no such thing. I could rob this tomb with my eyes closed. I've just been letting you do the work because it would be degrading to expect me to do it."

"You're right," Marik lowered his eyelids and pivoted, aiming his shoulder at Bakura, the way a cat will turn on its owner and proudly walk away after being fed. "There was no pressure plate. But it was so adorable watching you get all flustered. Am I detecting a touch of rust on your crown, thief king?"

Bakura rolled his eyes. "So where are we now, exactly?"

"Here."

The room was lit by a series of torches placed upon thin, elongated pedestals that spanned the walkway leading up to a large, pristine plinth. As a result, shapes and structures within it seemed to stretch and dance to a soft, slow rhythm. Dimensions were oblique and confused, as though imagined up by some eccentric artist. All around them, piles upon piles of jewels and trinkets - not to mention more gold than Bakura had seen in a dozen lifetimes - had been stacked neatly and in orderly sections of the room, as though they would be needed at some point in the near future. The floor was patterened with concentric circles of different colored brickwork, travelling from dark gray all the way to a chalk-like white where the plinth sat in the middle of the room.

Raised slightly from the ground, the plinth was carved from some sort of white rock, resembling polished sandstone. As it rose from the ground, it spread outward in an upside-down conical formation, and resting atop its circular platform shape was a sarcophagus encrusted with gems all the colors of the rainbow. Torchlight glistened upon its golden surface, and Bakura could make out the beautiful, dead eyes that adorned the mask upon its lid. A coffin for a king. A resting place for one who was forever restless. A grave for one who would never die.

"The Pharaoh's burial chamber," Bakura remarked coolly, hiding whatever slight awe he possessed. "I remember his father's like it was yesterday. Made a mockery of that one too." His lips smacked together and he slipped his hands into his pockets, balling them into eager fists. "This, however, will be far more enjoyable."

"For both of us," Marik replied.

Now it was Bakura who took the lead, ambling down the marked path that led to the center of the chamber. He held out his left arm and casually pushed over each of the wooden pedestals on one side of the walkway as he made his way into the room, watching them fall limply to one side, the flames still burning at odd angles. A chuckle grew inside his throat, and he began flinging the pedestals this way and that, admiring his work as they each collapsed in a crisscross pattern. Marik followed close behind, doing the same to the torch stands on the other side, silently though, refusing to join with the open peals laughter that now rang freely from Bakura's mouth.

Bakura's face split into a malicious smile as he reached the sarcophagus. He touched it, savoring the cold, tangible feeling that came with it - evidence of the Pharaoh's mortality. He stroked the coffin, regarding it the way one might admire a lover or a child, and brought his lips to it. He kissed it gently, his mouth pressed against the feminine features of the sarcophagus' face. He kissed it and thought of his family, who were not blessed with a quick and painless death. He kissed it and thought of the people of his village, who were not given the opportunity to defend themselves or the crimes they supposedly committed. He kissed it and thought of the life he once had, roaming the dunes as a vagabond while the one who caused his condition sat comfortably in a throne and had servants waiting on his every word, his every breath.

He stood beside Marik once more and regarded the sarcophagus. "I'm glad he's not dead yet. Not completely dead, anyway."

"Oh?" Marik turned and gave him a quizzical look, a hand on his hip. His lips were noticeably dry and it only made Bakura want to wet them with his own. "Why, because we'd have nothing to do otherwise? Aside from the obvious, of course." He punctuated this remark by reaching a hand around Bakura's waist and sneaking his fingers across his crotch, allowing his middle and index finger to play with the area where Bakura's cock now rested at half-mast. "Taking your time, aren't you? I expected you to be stiff as a board by now. I've been rock hard since we got here. It's been so painful keeping it hidden, but not long now."

Marik rested his chin at the base of Bakura's neck and dragged his dry lips against the flesh there, mouthing silent sentences as he travelled the breadth of his shoulders. Bakura's eyes remained fixed on the coffin, never bolting, never blinking. Marik's middle finger curled and tickled at the tip of his member, and though it did indeed become hard, it was a mere muscular thing; Bakura's mind could not have been further from the act. Marik exhaled onto his neck, causing gooseflesh to flare up, and he bit into it. Not too firm, but not too soft. His tongue darted between his teeth, dabbing eagerly at the sensitive spots on his neck, and then Bakura's own lips parted - in the silence of his thoughts, the smacking sound was akin to an explosion.

"I'm glad he's not dead," Bakura continued, not a bit flustered by Marik's playful fondling, "because now I get to enjoy watching him die firsthand, see the look in his eyes as he realizes that his great plan, his grand resurrection, has failed. See the pain in the eyes of his friends as they watch their loved one perish. See it and let them see that same look in my eyes, and tell them, now you see. Now you see what I've been seeing my whole existence. Now you understand, now you get to live with this, now you get to die with this. Now you know. You too."

With these last few words spoken, Marik squeezed at his crotch with his fingers, as if to snap him out of it, or as though the boy had chosen to listen to his hormones rather than the speech. Bakura snapped around suddenly, causing Marik's mouth to retreat from his neck, his jaw left hanging open in an almost cartoon-like display of shock. A prominent scowl was written on Bakura's brow, brown eyes turned jet black in the adverse mix of shadow and light of the burial chamber. Neither one spoke. The only sound came from the torch Bakura still held between them, the familiar crackle of the flames growing louder in their ears, surrounding them and becoming as much a part of them as their own heartbeats. Louder and louder it roared. Louder and louder, hotter and hotter. The fire was in their chests, and it beat there hungrily.

Bakura kissed him angrily. Their teeth collided together, the pain fleeting, and they bit at each other's mouths with a violent lust. Tongues held back, jaw muscles working vigorously, they wrestled against each other's bodies, Bakura's free arm wrapping around the boy while the other set the torch upon the sarcophagus. Marik immediately went for Bakura's ass, gripping it with both hands and massaging firmly, eager as ever to get straight to business. When the kiss broke it was only to allow Marik to breathe, and even then Bakura gave him only a moment's respite. Marik wanted to fuck, but Bakura wanted to fuck with him. He bit into Marik's bottom lip, clamping his teeth down hard, and growled. Marik's face exploded, eyes twitching as he tried not to cry out. Then Bakura tasted blood, and pulled back, not simply removing his teeth but letting the thin skin of Marik's mouth snap away from them instead like rubber elastic.

Now Marik yelped, his hand instinctively reaching to his face. He glared at Bakura, his Adam's apple wobbling wildly as he struggled to regain his composure. A tiny sliver of blood welled in his lips as they formed an unattractive pout. Bakura cocked an eyebrow at the boy and threw his head back in a laugh. He then reached out with a finger and caught some of the blood on its tip, placing it on his own mouth and smearing it across his face like an inexperienced child applying lipstick for the first time. His tongue darted out at Marik as he now grabbed at the boy's crotch, toying with it.

"Don't get so upset," Bakura chided, his voice barely more than a growl. "It's not like I bit your cock or anything."

"If you had," Marik threatened, "you know what would happen."

Bakura smiled. Around a week ago, they had been fooling around; Marik had wanted to try out a few new positions, and Bakura had wanted to take it from a few new directions. Before long, he had found himself rolled up almost into a ball, ass in the air with his face planted firmly in between the pillows; knees and wrists bound together, upside-down while Marik plowed into him. Bakura had felt somewhat humiliated and got very little out of the experience, and so, when Marik suggested they try something akin to the sixty-nine position, he had swallowed Marik's seed and then, for dessert, he bit down gently into the angry tip of his spent penis. The tantrum that followed had been painful for Bakura, but it was worth it to see the humiliation in Marik's face. Afterward, Marik had told him that if he ever tried that again, he would cut Bakura's off altogether. If it had been any other person, Bakura would have thought it to be nothing more than an empty threat.

"Don't worry," Bakura soothed, stepping around Marik and placing his mouth directly under his ear, purring into it. "I'll swallow everything this time, but I won't bite. Not your cock, anyway."

Bakura slipped his hands around Marik's waist, savoring the dizzy feeling in his stomach as his fingers stroked the almost impossibly toned abdominal muscles Marik possessed. Then he set about unfastening Marik's pants, silently rejoicing as they came undone and he felt the firm skin beneath his belt, one hand finding its way down to the shaft of Marik's erect penis. He grasped it. Bakura wondered if it felt this good for everyone, or if he were just blessed with a partner so well-endowed that every journey south felt as though he were unsheathing some legendary weapon of unsurpassed might. He took it by the hilt and slapped his fingers around its girth, urging it to grow even harder. To grow even mightier.

"You want to fuck me with this, Marik?" Bakura sighed longingly. He didn't do that often, but when he did, it was usually while touching Marik's dick.

"What else is it for?" Marik replied.

"I can think of so many uses."

To emphasize his point, Bakura jerked it a few times, pulling its thick length with one hand and reaching down with his other to massage his balls. He had his arms wrapped around Marik from behind, pleasuring him, fingers hard at work as he focused on touching all the spots on Marik's privates that he knew would spur him toward climaxing. Around the tip, cupping the balls, under the shaft, he knew when and where and how often to squeeze and touch and tickle and tug. And there was so much to work with. Precum sticking to his fingers, he fondled Marik to the point that he was sure he was about to finish, when Marik's voice interrupted him.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

Bakura stopped. "What? Did you want me to use my mouth? Because I figured with that whole 'no biting' thing, we'd both much rather be safe than sorry."

"Not that," said Marik. He nodded toward the sarcophagus, which lay beneath Bakura's still burning torch, looking for all the world like Frankenstein's monster trapped beneath the burning windmill. "Him."

"Of course," Bakura snorted, removing his hands begrudgingly from Marik's still hard cock. He moved around the other, and stood beside the plinth, retrieving the torch once more. "After all, it would be so very rude of us to leave our host out of the proceedings."

Bakura steeled himself. He didn't sleep, so to suggest that he had dreamed of this moment would be a lie. But he had often pictured it in his head, more so since Marik had made the suggestion that they come out here and act out this dark fantasy like a bloody play with no audience. He touched the edge of the coffin and felt the air travelling through his lungs, as if to say _I'm alive and you're not_ - though he knew full well that neither of these statements was strictly true. With a loud grunt, he flung the lid off the sarcophagus and took a step backward, half expecting to see a living, breathing Pharaoh lying inside with his arms crossed about his chest, smiling to himself, ready to point at the two of them and laugh off their attempted invasion.

Inside the sarcophagus was a corpse. A teenage boy. Once a noble king now a noble pile of dried flesh, frayed linen, and dust. The musty smell wasn't overpowering, but it certainly managed to put a dampener on the mood. Bakura leaned in close and could see the Pharaoh's crown strapped about the remains of his head, and he thought how bizarre it seemed to look upon the man without his trademark tri-color hair. It was like seeing his worst enemy stripped bare and naked, not simply of his clothes - for those had been buried with him - but of time and youth and innocence. One minute a man has a soul, and the next it's been pulled clean out and all you have left is this pitiful, grey husk. It was rather beautiful, and not to mention - in this instance - extremely gratifying.

He reached down and retrieved the body from the coffin, and was surprised to find it was rather heavy. As well preserved as it had been, he still expected it to have lost a considerable amount of mass in the last few millennia. Instead it had probably been stuffed with several of the Pharaoh's prized possessions, golden trinkets that weighed it down even more than the dense fabric that had been wrapped around the body of the boy. Bakura cradled the corpse to him, the way a mother might hold the body of a child found drowned in a river. Except he did not cry for a life that had been taken before its time. He did not cry at all.

Bakura laughed.

He laughed as he held the dead body of his enemy, for he had longed to experience this moment. After all, in his first life - the life he still remembered with awful clarity while many of the others went out with the tide of history, for they were the memories that mattered, that stung, that burned - he would have killed hundreds, nay, thousands of men just to know that the Pharaoh lay dead in a ditch somewhere. Now here he was, nameless and forgotten, and it felt good. It felt much better than anything Marik was able to do for him. It was knowing that somewhere, at some point, Atem had breathed his last. At some point in history, this villain of a man had closed his eyes and known that it was over, even if losing his life was only a small loss in the grand scheme of things. Somewhere, at some point in time, he had died, and it had likely hurt him and everyone who cared about him.

"Had I only been there to slit his throat myself!" Bakura roared. "I would have done so, in plain view, for all to see! Slit him open and kept on slicing till his guts decorated the floor!"

"It's not too late."

Bakura looked to Marik, who was sitting on the edge of the sarcophagus, his pants lowered just far enough for his cock to taste the dead, musty air of the burial chamber. He regarded Bakura with a sly look in his eyes, idly stroking and patting the hardness he was showing, the cut in his lip not nearly as red or as swollen as the tip of his member. He watched Bakura and slowly masturbated on the final resting place of their sworn enemy, and somewhere overhead it sounded like a storm had begun to brew on the surface, matching the dark thoughts in Marik's mind.

"Mutilate him," Marik urged, arching his back and flexing his manhood. He was showing off, but Bakura liked what was being shown. "Who knows. Maybe somehow he'll feel it. Maybe his soul still holds some connection to his body, and even if it's only a little, wouldn't you want him to feel death? Even if it's just a shadow passing over his spirit for a moment, wouldn't you want to be the one to cast it?"

Bakura looked to the mummified corpse in his arms, which barely resembled the man he hated. "Yes. If I cannot make him bleed or suffer in his current form, I will destroy what remains of him in this world." He threw the body to the ground, a dull crunch reverberating throughout the room as the head twisted slightly and almost came clean off right then. He stepped on its chest, and for a moment he could even hear the Pharaoh's cries for mercy escaping from its faceless form. "I will kill him a second time. Ruin him. Cut off his road from here to the afterlife." He reached into his jacket and removed a dagger, holding it to the light as he trembled violently with bloodlust. "I shall murder your soul, Pharaoh."

Marik continued to pleasure himself. "Do it."

With an animal sound, Bakura threw himself upon the body, stabbing it repeatedly in the chest, then the stomach, then the shoulders, neck, torso, every which way he could. His arm was a piston, puncturing through the fabric with ease and slicing into the Pharaoh's ancient organs with a satisfying smacking sound. The blood inside, mixed with the oils and other materials that had been used to embalm the corpse, sprayed out slowly in a thick black substance. It began to pool around Bakura's knees as he mauled the body, his breath haggard and his voice an almost constant scream. It wasn't laughter anymore. It had grown into something else, something that had been building within him since the moment Bakura had watched his family die.

"ATEM!" he bellowed the word he swore never to speak, finally tearing the blade of the knife into the corpse's throat, splitting it open with a loud gasp of air. The head rolled a few feet away, and Bakura's voice echoed back and forth, like someone trying to find the owner of the name to no avail. Anyone with such a name had died a long, long time ago.

"Very good," Marik whispered when the noise had finally expired. Bakura wheeled around, his eyes bloodshot and nostrils flared. His chest was coated in that thick black liquid, and his heart was racing. "Now, let's finish what we came here to do."

"I thought we came here to fuck," Bakura wheezed.

"Oh we did," Marik replied, reaching over and picking up the torch. In one hand he held the fiery instrument that lit up the room, and in the other he wielded his throbbing member, glowing in its own particular way. Bakura knew which one he would have rather warmed himself with. "But everyone knows the best fucks always happen in front of a fireplace."

Bakura shifted in place as Marik rose to his feet, now holding the torch with both hands. He watched as the boy strode with a purpose, sauntering over to where Bakura now lay doused in sickly fluids. Once more the fire danced in his eyes, but it wasn't simple carnal desires that fuelled the flames - it was the same anger, the same bloodlust, the same vengeful spirit that Bakura had just allowed to take control of him. It existed in both of them. In a way, they were soul mates, but it was the damaged parts of them that fit together, like two individual pieces from differing puzzles that matched merely because someone forgot to build them correctly.

"Move."

That one word was enough to force Bakura to crawl backwards away from Marik. Now it was his turn. His turn to take out many years of suffering on the once mighty king. Admittedly, he hadn't been suffering for nearly as long as Bakura, but the wounds were just as deep, if not deeper in some places. After all, Bakura had not been driven to murder his own flesh and blood. That was a scar that he would never have to bear. He stared wide-eyed as Marik slowly, deliberately lowered the torch's lit end to the ground, setting fire to the frayed fabric that had been meant to protect the body from the outside elements. Before long, the corpse was ablaze, Marik so close to the flames that he too might have been consumed by them. Bakura wondered if Marik would have cried out should that have happened. Somehow, he knew Marik wouldn't have made a sound. He would have willingly become one with the profane funeral pyre, and relished the pain that could never match the ever burning fire in his heart.

Marik stared into the flames the way a child might stare into the sun until warned off from doing so. He bathed in the heat from the body, and only then did the smell become something worse, something sickening. Burning flesh, not unlike the pungent, grotesque aroma that had risen from the pit as the Pharaoh's men first forged the Millennium Items. Bakura clutched the Ring around his neck, wiping the blackened, bloody liquid clean from its golden surface. He wanted whatever soul still existed in there, even if it were only his host, to watch their enemy burn. It was a slow, silent thing, and not the loud torture that Bakura had displayed. But it was just as unsettling, and for Marik at least, just as rewarding.

Marik crouched down and leaned in close to the fire, as if ready to whisper a secret. "Burn in Hell, Pharaoh."

The flames continued to caress the air as they both eventually gravitated back toward the plinth where the now empty sarcophagus lay. Bakura kicked it to the ground, the lid scattering wildly as though trying to regain its balance so it might stand up and give them a lecture on the mistreatment of burial caskets. He removed his jacket, letting it fall to the ground in a heap. Bakura's grin was permanent as he spread his arms across the bare stone platform and allowed Marik to remove his pants, his bare bottom now warmed by the still blazing fire that consumed the Pharaoh's corpse. He breathed in heavily and savored the moment. It was a delicious abomination.

"The king is dead," Marik spoke, and the words sent electricity coursing through Bakura's spine. He shivered, though he felt far from cold, and slid his legs apart, his buttocks hitching up toward the boy's waiting crotch. Bakura rested his head on the plinth and felt the cold stone beneath his cheek, looking for all the world like a hunter listening for nearby animals. Except nothing lived here anymore. Nothing died here, either. This place was vacant now, bereft of life and bereft of death. This was now limbo, unheard and unseen, and they belonged here more than anyone on the face of the planet. Marik repeated: "The king is so very fucking dead."

Bakura couldn't see it, but he could hear Marik applying lube to his fingers; the squelch sound that accompanied the tube of clear liquid doubled his anticipation. He felt himself grow harder and the muscles in his legs and thighs tighter. He almost wanted Marik to go in dry, as painful as it would have been, as difficult and awkward as it would have been, to ruin a moment like this with preparation was almost a sin. He wanted the pain; he wanted to feel every inch of Marik's enormous cock as it plunged into him, puncturing him the way he had sliced into the Pharaoh's corpse, making him bleed anew onto this consecrated ground. But alas, he felt Marik's fingers pinching into his anus, slipping deep within as he gasped quietly. It was not an unpleasant feeling, but in the back of his mind he still wished he had requested that Marik forego such formalities.

He felt the tip of Marik's penis stroking his left cheek, that familiar rubbery texture, precum still seeping from its one angry eye, leaving a circular trail behind on his pallid flesh. He pictured Marik's cock in his mind, and moaned loudly, knowing how big it could get, how big it would feel on the inside. Perhaps it was for the best that he'd been prepared, for Marik's penis was the largest he'd seen - the largest he'd experienced. He wasn't sure how this pathetic little bastard raised in poverty in the middle of the desert had found himself so very blessed, but the gods had somehow seen fit to give him an abundance of girth. Bakura loved it, though. A lesser being would have felt dwarfed in comparison - especially Bakura, who didn't have much to brag about - but instead he felt comforted by it. After all, having a well-endowed lover was like having his very own throne. Whenever he sat on it, he felt like a king.

"Long live the king," Bakura smiled.

Grabbing Bakura by the hips, Marik stabbed his cock deep into him, plunging it into his waiting asshole. Bakura's entire body flinched and he gripped at the edges of the stone plinth for support, one of his fingernails bending backwards and almost snapping in the process. The feel of Marik entering him never failed to exhilarate, stretching his anus to its threshold until it felt as though it might burst. Then the boy began thrusting, growling as he did so, in then out, in then out, deep, deep, deep inside, and then briefly out again. Their love making was always so violent and unstoppable, never ceasing until they had spent every last ounce of sweat, every last ounce of blood, every last ounce of cum. Bakura pounded his fists against the stone platform, demanding more of it, more of him.

"Keep it in there you bastard," Bakura moaned. "Keep it in, keep it in me."

"Shut up!"

Bakura felt Marik strike him in the back of the head and for a moment bright light filled his vision, leaving faded imprints upon his retinas of the hieroglyphs that patterned the walls. He came to very quickly and felt Marik once again diving into him, his asshole swallowing his member. Bakura felt Marik flexing it inside him, and his legs almost gave way beneath him. It was overwhelming, both painful and pleasurable. He drove his backside into Marik's crotch, hitching and bucking to the rhythm of his thrusts, keeping his cock clamped tightly between his cheeks. His flustered face was flattened against the plinth, the world around him spinning out of control as he pulled back his gums and gritted his teeth. Sweat poured into his eyes and he cried nonsense words, nonsense sentences, bellowing encouragements at Marik and cursing him at once. Overhead, the ominous sound of thunder rolled quietly and contemplatively, as though something were inherently wrong with the universe and the gods were trying to discern just what it was.

Marik reached around and began tickling Bakura's balls, fondling the underside of his erect penis with his index finger as he did so. He was strong in so many ways, but from Marik even the faintest touch could cause him to achieve orgasm. Bakura felt his own cock dribbling with precum, the sound of wet flesh slapping against wet flesh reaching his ears as he struggled to maintain his endurance. Marik had proven a challenge at times, sometimes holding back his climax for up to an hour or more, no matter what Bakura tried. The boy was stubborn, of course, and liked to make him work for it. Bakura, on the other hand, did not care how he climaxed or indeed how quickly, so long as it was a pleasurable experience. This did not mean kissing or cuddling, or the right mood or the correct music. It meant rough, hard, angry, violent, terrible, loud, rampant, painful, sore, over, under, bigger, harder, stronger, deeper. If he came out of sex with a few lasting bruises, you knew it had been a good session.

The fingers cupping his balls moved faster, more feverishly, gradually shifting to the tip of his raging boner and playing it like an instrument. Bakura felt himself reach his limit, and a few slaps of Marik's hand around his shaft, gripping it with every strike like he were trying to wrench it off, caused him to unload his warm seed, spreading it against the side of the once sacred plinth, his knees buckling pathetically as though he were praying. But Marik didn't let up. He continued slamming it into him, his cock showing no signs of tiring or losing its rigidity. Bakura felt himself being practically thrown forwards, his entire body bursting with that familiar post climax high, while simultaneously racked with the soreness that came with being penetrated so furiously. He imagined that this would be close to torture for most people. Then he once again thanked the gods that he wasn't most people.

Without warning, Marik suddenly grabbed Bakura by his elbow and pulled back, practically yanking his arm out of its socket in the process. Bakura tensed, feeling Marik's arms wrap around his neck, lacing his own arms together behind his back and leaning backwards, turning it into a sort of half nelson. Still he continued to thrust, slower now due to the nature of the hold he had on Bakura, but the pain had increased. Now every time his body shifted, every time his hips pulled back to ready themselves for another assault, Bakura's arms - specifically the left arm - would be pulled at an awkward angle, resulting in his muscles tensing and his bones aching. It was a great deal more painful than he expected.

"Marik-" he began.

"I said shut up," came the reply. "You want me to finish, don't you?"

"Of course," Bakura grunted, Marik thrusting into him with every other syllable. His arms were now a pair of red hot irons, and they only grew hotter with every wrench and every twist. "Of course but you're going to-"

"Break your arms?" Marik completed his thought. "Maybe. Maybe not." Bakura's eyes widened. He wasn't so much afraid as he was surprised by Marik's casual attitude when it came to such things. Maybe even a little impressed. "We both have our own way of fucking each other, don't we? Sometimes we like to play mind games and fuck with each other's heads. And sometimes we like to get out the knives and fuck around with those together. But sometimes, sometimes I just really need to fucking break something."

As he said this, his pace quickened suddenly and Bakura could feel his left arm start to give. He wanted to cry out, to beg Marik to stop, but something prevented him. He wanted to feel this, wanted to know just how bad Marik could hurt him. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad, or perhaps it would be worse than he thought. Either way, he wanted to know, didn't want to turn back now. And as Marik came into his asshole, the hot creamy fluid filling him up from within, both their bodies tensed up and he felt his arm dislocate and he cried. Not in pain. Not in pain at all, though it did hurt a great deal more than he expected. He cried out because he felt something bigger than pain, greater than any agony he'd known. His body slumped onto the plinth and he allowed Marik to remain inside him, slowly draining the semen from his cock. He felt the cum moving within his body and he trembled, his lips curling into a smile as he favored his left arm and moaned softly.

It wasn't pain he had felt. It was a fire, raging inside his soul brighter than it had ever done before. And fire burns.

He looked over at the charred remains of the Pharaoh, now brittle and black.

Fire always burns.


End file.
